Hi, Friends of MMS:

Boston's elevated railway began burrowing underground shortly after its own introduction in 1901. A first experimental segment of what's now the Green Line became the first subway in the USA even earlier, in 1897. And eleven years ago today, June 25th, the last elevated segment of a much-expanded "T" went down (both figuratively and literally) to join it. That's the underground portion of "The T", Boston's now-public fleet of commuter rail, of subways, of trolleys on the street and underground, and of buses including a few underground "tracks" for them! It was Charlie's MTA ("Did he ever return?"), and now it's the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority.

It's a good story, ready to read here:
http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=185
http://www.massmoments.org/moment.cfm?mid=254
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_Line_%28MBTA%29
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rapid_transit

A parallel first subway ride in NYC (a year after it opened in 1904):
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/video-reveals-108-year-old-subway-ride-article-1.1412802
And with a tip of the hat to approximation and to politicians:
http://behindthescenes.nyhistory.org/mayor-george-b-mcclellan-and-the-first-subway-ride/

And now, early Boston friends, what was the name of that Middle-Eastern restaurant where the MIT crowd once cooed over the kous-kous, back in the 1960s and under the elevated in the South End?

I couldn't remember to save myself.

But Jill beat you to it. She replied instantly: "The Red Fez!" We're both astonished.

Alas, we can't go back. Within the past year or so, it seems that the Red Fez transmogrified into a sports bar serving American cuisine. And, sadly but apparently, just in time.

No Red Fez, and no elevated.


(The MMS Extra Feature is updated twice monthly; you can find it on-line, with a link near the top of our MMS home page. If you're near Natick, enjoy a FOSS User Group meeting - with an introductory slide talk at 3PM - usually on the first Thursday of the month.)